


The Boss

by Honorable_mention



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: COVID-19, Comedian Richie Tozier, Domestic Fluff, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Eddie's coworkers - Freeform, Famous Richie Tozier, Fix-It, Fluff, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Gay Richie Tozier, M/M, Married Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, POV Outsider, Quarantine, Teasing, Zoom - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:41:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24817789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Honorable_mention/pseuds/Honorable_mention
Summary: Liz's boss, Eddie Kaspbrak, is both incredibly boring and incredibly mean. So why, of all people, is comedian Trashmouth Tozier living at his house?
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 26
Kudos: 457





	The Boss

Everyone felt the need to warn Liz when Eddie Kaspbrak became her supervisor. They all warned her to brace herself for the worst, to expect meetings to take two extra hours for questions, to expect to rewrite reports three, four, even five times. She had been lucky to start out in Violet’s group, they said, because Violet was a push-over. But now Liz, because the universe hated her, was being sent to work for Eddie.

Liz had expected it to be bad, but nothing could have quite prepared her for the experience of working with Eddie. He was a black hole of fun who would get frustrated over a single typo. He was a monster. He was a tyrant. And, on top of that, he was incredibly boring.

See, that was the thing. Liz had been working with Eddie for five months now, and she couldn’t tell you a single thing about him outside of work. He ate the same thing for lunch every day (a salad of microgreens with feta and chickpeas), and his desk was cleaner than an operating room. Liz was pretty sure she caught the corner of a photo in his desk when he pulled out his weekly progress evaluations once, but she couldn’t be sure. 

The first inkling Liz got about who Eddie was as a person came one foggy night in February. Liz’s roommate and occasional co-worker, Graham, had dragged her along to a nightclub to watch this comedian he liked. 

“I swear, Lizzy, he’s the best. Like, okay, some of his stuff is a bit crude, but I promise it’s still good. And he’s gay! I know you don’t like it when I pander to you by saying stuff like that, but you just gotta come and see him,” Graham said. “You’ll have a great time.” He was practically pulling them towards the door of their apartment as he spoke.

“You already know I’m going to go, I always do. But I’m always disappointed.”

“Fine! That punk ska band wasn’t your thing, but I’ve also brought you to tons of fun things before.” He flashed her a cheesy grin, one he knew she couldn’t say no to.

Liz pulled on her warmest, greyest coat. “At least tell me his name so I don’t sound like a complete idiot.”

“Trashmouth Tozier.”

* * *

The club was filthy. Liz couldn’t think of any better way to put it. The floor was sticky with past drinks never quite mopped up, and the chairs creaked and whistled when she sat down. The air was dark and heavy, and purple spotlights lit up the edge of the stage. According to Graham, this show was a big deal. Trashmouth was a name in Hollywood, coming back to the place of his first show for reasons he had explained and Liz had promptly forgotten. Graham had forked over a lot of money, he told her, half his pay this week from Starbucks and a third that he’d made temping in their office. 

Liz was starting to enjoy herself when she noticed a familiar face in the corner. It couldn’t be, she told herself. She looked away and looked again.

“Hey, Graham, that’s Eddie over there, right? My asshole boss?”

“Where?”

“Over there, in the corner, back left. By himself.” She pointed to Eddie, or Eddie’s  look-alike, as he took a sip of his drink.

“Dude! That’s totally him!”

“Keep your voice down! I don’t want him seeing us,” she whispered.

“Why not?”

“Can you imagine how awkward that would be?”

“Good point,” he said as a woman rushed on stage, dragging a microphone cord behind her.

“Hello everybody!” She yelled, and the crowd cheered back. “Who’s ready to laugh?” She introduced the opener, some college kid at UCLA. He was good. Not great, but good. And then, the main show: Trashmouth Tozier.

He wasn’t anything special, Liz thought. Although that might come at least partially from the fact that she’d never really liked stand-up in the first place. What made it memorable, though, was her boss. Because Eddie spent the whole show heckling the performer. 

“Hey, asshole, that all you got? I’ve read funnier material in Reader’s Digest!” He yelled, grinning.

“Oh yeah?” Trashmouth said back. “I thought all you read was the Economist.”

“At least I can read!”

Trashmouth gave Eddie the bird, and Eddie flipped him off right back. Liz couldn’t believe her eyes. “He loves me, don’t worry,” Trashmouth stage-whispered into the microphone.

On and on it went through the entire show. Liz sat in her seat, utterly baffled. Her boss, that evil, cartoonish villain of a man, attended comedy shows in dingy clubs. Not only did he attend, he heckled the performers!

After the show ended, Liz and Graham stayed seated in their chairs, finishing their drinks and waiting for the club to get a little less crowded before they left. Liz was laughing at a stupid pun Graham made when she heard someone behind her.

“Hello,” Eddie said. He was wearing his usual business clothes with only the suit jacket removed. It was a strange juxtaposition in the club, and yet felt so right to who Eddie was as a person.

“Uh, hey,” Graham stuttered out.

“I see that we all happen to be here together. So, I’d like you all to know, I’d prefer to keep my private life separate from my work life. I’m sure you’ll understand. I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t mention this at work on Monday. Your discretion is much appreciated” Eddie said, checking his watch. “Well, it’s getting late. I really should be going. I’ll see you soon.” He began to walk away. “And Liz? Please, please get your work done on the Dynage account before we get back to work. I don’t want to spend Monday morning finishing it for you.”

“Of course,” Liz muttered. She couldn’t even begin to process what had happened. All she knew was that she and Graham needed to stay up that night eating ice cream out of tubs and researching Edward Kaspbrak on the internet.

* * *

No progress had been made on the ‘Who is Eddie?’ project since the night of the club incident. Eddie was just a complete ghost online, and he continued to be a complete non-entity of a person at work. In fact, he remained so boring that Liz almost forgot about the club incident.

And then quarantine happened. Her job continued, with her tracking accounts, making calls, and writing reports from the comfort of her well-worn couch, but she also had too much free time on her hands.

Maybe, she told herself, she would finally be able to learn something else interesting about Eddie through their daily work calls. Everyone’s living space said something about them. 

But, alas, all Eddie’s apartment said about him was that he was, as she already knew, overwhelmingly boring. He set up his computer and started talking, and she tried to peak behind him, see if she could see some art, a photo even. Yet he seemed to be sitting in front of nothing but a plain beige wall. Not even an interesting color, just beige.

So it went for three weeks. But then, a new development arose.

Liz was checking Instagram on her phone below the computer when, through the call, she heard someone yell “Shit!” at the top of their voice. She looked at everyone’s faces, trying to figure out where it came from, when Eddie yelled something back to the unidentified voice.

“Babe, I love you, but what in the name of all that is holy are you doing in there?”

“Nothing,” the voice said.

“I know that’s a lie.”

“Okay, so I just realized I sent my new agent that cute video of the dog skiing instead of my new script.” 

Eddie sighed. “I’m sure Menna will be fine with it. Just send her another email with the script.” He turned back to the screen. “Sorry about that, my husband’s still trying to figure out how all things related to tech work. He’s remarkably terrible at it, as we’ve both been learning.” Eddie laughed.

“I didn’t know you were married,” Rahim said.

“It never came up.”

* * *

It was a normal day, the day that everything changed. Liz had managed to finally close her account with NestNet, a company for whom no risk assessment was satisfactory. She joined the call that day feeling pretty good about herself.

They were discussing figures when a crash sounded through the whole call. Eddie’s door burst open and none other than Trashmouth Tozier himself threw himself into the room.

“Eddie! I broke another stack of plates!”

“I’m in the middle of something,” Eddie said, as if an actual, real celebrity wasn’t standing behind him (and Liz had checked. Trashmouth had far too many twitter followers for the amount of dick jokes in his sets).

“I’m just warning you! Anyway, I love you, and we’re watching Phineas and Ferb again tonight, even though we are grown men and Bill thinks it’s uncool. Hope that’s fine.”

“It is, Rich. Talk to you later. Also, can you order Thai tonight? And get me an extra large tea?”

“Of course! Love you!” Trashmouth kissed Eddie’s forehead before running back out the door with the energy of a chihuahua on speed.

“Sorry guys, I’m back,” Eddie said, addressing the group. Everyone got back to talking, but Liz couldn’t stop smiling. She had the new best story to tell Graham.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back, writing a super similar story two days in a row. I just really like quarantine/Eddie's coworkers stories. Sue me. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy, and I hope you have an amazing day!


End file.
